


A State of Being

by mollswinchester



Series: Epilogue 'Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coda, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Castiel (Supernatural), POV Dean Winchester, POV Outsider, POV Sam Winchester, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27646970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollswinchester/pseuds/mollswinchester
Summary: Supernatural Season 15 Episode 20 "Carry On" Fix-It/Rewrite
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Epilogue 'Verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021512
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	A State of Being

Dean is hurting; that much, Sam can tell. 

Sam hand Dean spent more time together than any normal siblings ever would. Together, they’d been through more than what should have been possible. Sam was under no pretense that their lives were anything close to normal. Things should have ended for them a long time ago. But they didn’t. 

In retrospect, Sam didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it all along. Maybe in the beginning it was because he was naive, just like a young person should be. But as life went on, he and Dean had somehow always felt like they were alone. 

Seeing everyone disappear before his eyes made Sam realize that no matter how alone they might have felt, it was never just the two of them. It was Dad, or Bobby, or hell, even Ruby for a while. It was Donna and Jody and the girls, Charlie, Jack. 

It was Cas. 

If it weren’t for them… Well, if it weren’t for them, Dean would still be in Hell and Sam probably would have followed not long after. 

It’s really a testament to mess of their lives, the fact that Dean smiling so much is what tips them off. After that, he starts to notice the excessive laughter and the lectures. God, the lectures; lectures on how Sam should be happy because it’s what Jack and Cas would have wanted. How he should enjoy life because that’s what they sacrificed themselves for. 

Sam doesn’t buy it. 

He keeps bringing them up, hoping Dean will show some sign of pain or grief, but he doesn’t. And Sam doesn’t care about the looks Dean gives him when he mentions bringing Cas back. He knows his brother better than he knows himself. He knows Dean is afraid of hoping, afraid of wanting, only to be let down. But Sam also knows that they owe it to Cas to try, because Cas never stopped trying for them. 

Dean gets wind of a case near Akron; the place sounds familiar, so Sam looks into it and he just knows. 

Dean fusses about leaving Miracle alone in the bunker, making sure there’s plenty of food and water in his bowls. Sam plays along, but if he’s right about this, they should be back before the dog even knows they’re gone. 

As Dean drives, he goes on and on about how it’s like old times, how surprised he is that his FBI suit still fits, how he can’t wait to get some good ol’ monster guts on his hands. But that’s the thing: this isn’t supposed to be like old times. They’ve been doing this their whole lives, they just defeated God—they deserve a little more new than some hick pie festival. Sam plays along because he knows Dean will back out if he knows what Sam’s real goal is. 

Sam manages to convince Dean to pull off the road onto a dirt lane. Dean bitches about Baby getting dirty or her tires being ruined but he does what Sam asks. 

“Okay, stop here,” Sam says when they make it. 

Dean glanced over at him once, the glint in his eyes saying he thought Sam was crazy, and puts the car in park. Sam climbs out first and immediately goes to the trunk. 

“The hell are we doing here?” Dean asks as he climbs out of the driver’s side. He shuts the door with a little more force than necessary. 

Sam doesn’t bother looking at him. “Recognize anything?” he asks. 

He can hear Dean turning, gravel crunching under his boots. When Sam finally looks up, Dean is staring at the tree. “Is this—Anna?”

Sam nods. “And then—”

“Cas.”

Sam pulls out the duffel bag he’d thrown into the trunk and digs around inside. Dean, who is still staring at the tree, clears his throat. “So what, you wanted to take a trip down memory lane? Now?”

“That’s not what this is,” Sam says, thumbing through the pages of the book. He’d found it in the bunker on one of the many nights Dean had passed out with a beer in one hand and his bloody jacket in the other. Sam isn’t supposed to know about that. He isn’t supposed to know that Dean is miserable. 

“Then what is it? We’re on a time crunch, man. You know, missing kids and all.”

“I talked to Donna. She said she’d find someone else to take the case.”

“What are you talking about? Why’d you let me drive all this way?” Sam huffs a breath and looks up from the book. “Cas didn’t die,” he says and, upon seeing Dean’s confusion, quickly corrects himself. “I mean, yes, the empty took him, but he didn’t die. He was taken.”

“You think I don’t remember that? I was there.”

Sam is barely able to resist rolling his eyes. “Yeah, I know, but Dean, I think that means his body’s still—”

“Sam stop.”

Sam blinks. “What?”

“I said stop. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m done with deals, done with bringing back the dead, done with all of it.”

“Done with Cas” It’s a low blow and sam knows that, but he doesn’t care. Not when they’re so close. 

Dean raises a finger at Sam, pointed in his face like he’s a disappointed father scolding his son. But he doesn’t say anything. He just lowers his hand and turns away. 

“Do you think I don’t know, Dean? Do you think I don’t see the way you carry around that jacket like your life depends on it? Do you think I didn’t see the way that you used to look at him?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean mutters. 

Sam ignores him. “God, Dean, I’m tired of all the self help, ‘time heals all wounds’ crap. This isn't you.” He pauses. “You know what would make Cas’s sacrifice worth it? Bringing him back to a better world. A free world. And proving to him that he’s always been more to us than just a useful weapon.”

Sam didn’t notice at first, when he looks at Dean he sees a steady stream of tears running down his face and he realizes Dean is defeated. He doesn’t want to have hope. 

“You’ve barely talked about him. You didn’t even tell me what had happened until you were wasted.”

Dean looks at him blankly. “I’m not doing this.”

“Fine, don’t. But I am. You can wait in the car.” Dean doesn’t move and neither does Sam. “Why don’t you just admit it?”

“Admit what?”

Sam fixes him with a look, one he knows Dean can identify, but Dean just turns away. “You know what.” Dean doesn’t move and Sam sighs. “Listen. I know you’re scared. I know you’re afraid that if you get your hopes up and lose this high you’ve been on, that it’ll hurt even more this time around. But Cas deserves more than what he has right now. And I think we need to give it to him.”

Dean still doesn’t say anything, but he turns to face Sam and tilts his head so he can see the book. 

“So his Grace, we’re gonna—”

“We’re going to destroy it. 

\---  
The first thing Cas notices is an annoying wetness. His fingers are sweaty and so is his forehead, but he’s freezing. It doesn’t make sense. Neither does the hollow pit in his stomach, the rumbling of his organs, or the ache filling his body. 

He doesn’t feel right. 

Slowly, he begins remembering things. His name, his history, his family. He remembers his confession and then empty taking him and the pure bliss he had felt for the first time in his existence. He’s never experienced anything like it before. Then again, he’s never loved anyone like he loves Dean Winchester before. 

It’s nothing, Cas knows. That’s where he is, surrounded by nothing. But he can’t shake the feeling that somehow, some way, he’s become something while he’s been here. He loses consciousness before he can figure out what it means. 

—-

Dean slams the car door behind him and barely takes a moment to feel bad about it. Sam is calling his name but he doesn’t care. Sam wanted him to mourn? To grieve? Feel pain like he’s never felt? Well, he got his damn wish. 

And Dean, Dean should have known it was too good to be true. The spell was too easy, too fast, too perfect. That should have told him. That should have told Sam. 

“Dean, wait up,” Sam calls, but Dean doesn’t stop. He storms up to the door of the bunker, ignoring the sound of his brother behind him,. 

Dean slams the car door behind him and barely takes a moment to feel bad about it. Sam is calling his name but he doesn’t care. Sam wanted him to be miserable? Well, he got his damn wish. 

And Dean, Dean should have known that it was too good to be true. The spell was too easy, too fast, too perfect. That should have told him. That should have told Sam. 

“Dean, wait up—” Sam called, but Dean didn’t stop. He stormed up to the door of the bunker, ignoring the sound of his brother running to catch up to him. 

Can you at least talk to me?” Sam asks as Dean begins unlocking the door. 

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Dean, I’m sorry,” Sam says, and it sounds like a plea. It occurs to Dean then that he isn’t the only one who lost Cas. He was Sam’s best friend too. 

Dean is about to turn, to say something, he doesn’t know what, when a second thought occurs to him—in the entire time Miracle has been living with thim, Dean hasn’t been able to leave the dog alone for more than five minutes without him whining like a baby, but the bunker is dead silent. He says as much to Sam who was apparently thinking the same thing because he’s already pulling out his gun. 

They walk into the bunker taking practiced slow and quiet steps. After clearing the war room, Sam jerks his head in the direction of the kitchen so Dean nods and takes off down the hall. 

For the most part, there’s nothing out of the ordinary. Some of the lights are on that Dean could have sworn he’d left off, but that’s an easy mistake to make. His and Sam’s rooms are both just how they’d left them. Dean opens the door to every room he passes, points his gun inside, and finds nothing. 

When he gets to Cas’s room, the urge to leave it be and walk away is strong. He shakes his head, takes a breath, and slowly pushes open the door. 

At first, it looks like a messy bed with piles of blankets and pillows. Then his eyes adjust to the light and he starts to make out the shape of a body, Cas’s body, lifeless under a heaping comforter.

Miracle is there, curled up with his head resting on Cas thigh. He’s wagging his tail like nothing is wrong, as if waiting for Dean to come and join them. When Dean does nothing of the sort, just stands and stares, slack-jawed and weak in the knees, Miracle lets out a quiet whine. Normally she’d get a bitch face in response, but Dean is still looking at Cas. 

There’s a twitch in Cas’s face, so small Dean swears to himself that he imagined it. But then it happens a second time, and he suddenly realizes what it means. Cas’ chest is moving up and down. His toes, which peek out from under the blankets, wiggle every so often. The softest of snores are coming from his mouth. 

It’s all Dea can do not to leap onto his sleeping form and hold him. If Sam is right and Cas really is human, he’s probably in desperate need of sleep. 

Dean stands there and stares for several more minutes, just to make sure it’s real, then leaves the room in search of Sam. 

Sam is still holding out his gun in the way they were taught as children, looking around corners and inside closets for any sign of something wrong. When he sees Dean, he lowes his gun, though he doesn’t put it away completely. “Nothing?” Sam asks, mistaking whatever look was on Dean’s face as concern instead of complete and utter shock. 

Sam finally drops his defensive stance and tucks his gun into the back of his pants. His fae is suddenly the of the hopeful little kid Dean once knew. “What?”

“He’s asleep. Human. You were—God, you were right, Sammy.”

Dean pours water into one of the biggest glasses in the cupboards and follows Sam back to Cas’s room. He’s still there, sleeping soundly with Miracle at his side. 

“Should we wake him?” Sam asks. 

Dean wants nothing more than to hear Cas’ voice, to look him in the eyes, once more. But Cas is human. The last time that had happened, it had taken much out of him. The least they can do is let him recuperate in the way humans are meant to. “No, let’s let him sleep.”

Sam nods and closes the bedroom door, settling himself onto the floor with his back up against the wall. Dean is there, standing in a room in the bunker with Cas and Sam. His family. The two people he cares about most. It’s almost too overwhelming to handle, so he takes to pacing from wall to wall of the small room. 

They wait for what feels like centuries when finally, finally, Dean hears his name muttered quietly and almost incoherent from where Cas is lying on the bed. He spins around so quickly he could have fallen if he weren’t so set on seeing Cas. 

“Hey,” Dean said quietly, hurrying over to the side of the bed. Sam stands as well and grabs the glass of water Dean had filled. 

“Drink this,” Sam says, holding it out for Cas. Cas obeys, downing the whole thing in one go. 

“Sam,” he says, and smiles. 

Dean kneels down beside the bed so that Cas doesn’t have to strain to see him. “Cas, what do you remember?”

Cas blinks a few times, looks from Sam to Dean to the empty wall on the other side of the room and takes a breath. “I remember you,” he says, nodding at Dean. “And Billy and—” he stops whatever he was planning on saying, but Dean knows. “I remember the Empty coming for me. Then all of a sudden I felt sick and tired and human. Then I woke up on the floor of the dungeon.” Every few words, Cas closes his eyes as if he’s willing himself not to fall asleep again. “I looked for you but you weren’t here. I thought—I figured it was God playing a cruel joke. And I was so exhausted, I could barely make it here.”

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Sam says. Dean is grateful because he feels like his tongue is tied up in knots inside his mouth, keeping him from being able to say a single thing. “Jack, he’s in charge now. Chuck is powerless.”

Cas closes his eyes and his lips turn upwards, reminding Dean so much of how he looked after he’d said goodbye. Dean has to look away. 

“Jack brought everyone back.”

“Is that why I’m here?”

“That was all Sammy,” Dean says proudly, somehow finding the will in himself to speak. Cas looks at him when he does and his face is soft, maybe even sad, like he too is remembering what he said before the Empty took him away. “S’why you’re human. He figured, you know, if he destroyed your Grace, the Empty wouldn’t want you.”

Sam clears his throat. “Yeah, look, I’m sorry. It was the only way—”

“Thank you, Sam,” Cas says with finality. Sam looks down at his feet and nods. 

Everything is quiet again for a few minutes, and despite Dean being close enough to reach out and touch Cas if he wanted to, they’re not looking at each other. In fact, it’s almost like Cas is pointedly trying not to look at Dean. 

Sam meets Dean’s eyes and is instantly walking toward the door. “You’re probably starving,” he says to Cas. “I’ll go see if we have anything in the kitchen for soup. It’s probably too soon for you to have anything more than that without getting sick.” He doesn’t wait for a response before he’s out the door, Miracle trotting alongside him. 

When Sam is gone, Cas finally turns his head so that his cheek is resting on the pillow and h’s looking up at Dean. “I’m sorry,” Cas says. 

Dean frowns. “What—”

“I, um, I understand if you’d like me to go—”

Something about that, something about Cas thinking he’s expendable, really pisses Dean off. “Are you kidding?” he asks. He grabs Cas’s hands, using them as leverage so he can put his wait over Cas without actually straining himself. He gets closer and closer until his face is only an inch away from Cas’s. “You’re not going anywhere. Don’t you ever do something like that again, you hear me?”

“Dean—”

“I love you too, you goddamned idiot. Of course I love you.” Cas lets out a shaky breath as Dean rests his forehead on Cas’s. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.” His voice is barely above a whisper. He doesn’t trust himself to speak any louder. “I’m sorry I didn’t show you how important you are. Not because of your powers but because you’re you, man. “

Slowly, Cas pulls one of his hands from Dean’s grasp, sliding it up his arm and stopping only when he gets to the back of his neck. Dean waits for a moment, thinking that if he was to die right now, it would be enough. It would be enough for Cas to know that he’s loved.

But for the first time since he was a child, Dean doesn’t have to stop at enough. He doesn’t have to accept the bare minimum. He presses his lips against Cas’s and doesn’t even feel embarrassed at the tears he knows are falling from his eyes onto Cas’s cheeks. It doesn’t feel wrong, or uncertain, or any of the things Dean has told himself repeatedly to keep himself from doing exactly this. 

Cas threads his hand through Dean’s hair, holding so tight it would hurt if not for Dean’s complete and utter focus on the feeling of Cas’s cracked, full lips against his. Their hands are still clasped together and Dean’s knee which rests on the bed is pressed up against the side of Cas’ thigh. 

They sit there like that, exploring this thing that had always been there between them, for what feels like hours. Sam doesn’t come back so Dean makes a mental note to thank him later. 

Eventually, he feels Cas starting to face. He starts pulling away longer so he can breathe and his arms have fallen slack against the bed. 

“Get some sleep,” Dean says, sitting up. He looks down at Cas, whose eyes are already fluttering shut. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Dean doesn’t let go of Cas. He climbs over him to the other side of the bed, all while holding his hand until he’s finally able to wrap his arms around him and pull Cas close. 

Cas is asleep in an instant. Dean knows he should rest too, knows there’s no reason for him to be awake, but he can’t. Instead, he watches Cas. It feels a little like he’s returning a long overdue favor and thinks back in amusement to the first time Cas told him he would watch over him. 

For the first time in his life, happiness feels more than just an emotion. It’s a state of being. It’s a part of Dean.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the reunion we all deserved. I'm planning on writing multiple ficlets in this 'verse to cover all of the terrible things that were forgotten in the finale. 
> 
> I hope you're all taking care of yourselves. I know this is a really upsetting time for a lot of us <3\. If you need someone to talk/vent to, feel free to message me and/or comment your frustrations!!
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr!! https://molls-winchester.tumblr.com


End file.
